


it stands for the sun

by elrohir



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: First Ones' Relics, Gen, The Whispering Woods, written pre-season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22897429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrohir/pseuds/elrohir
Summary: The Horde’s dull screech of metal and heat could not touch the heart of the Whispering Woods, where heavy strong oaks bulwarked the impenetrable fastness of a thousand years of unchecked wild growth. The forest’s ferocity was deliberate, of course. First Ones’ relics could not be stolen if they could not be found.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Shera





	it stands for the sun

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in early 2019, before season 2 aired, for a zine that unfortunately was not able to be completed. While that renders some elements of this work non-canon compliant, I wanted to share it regardless. Please enjoy.

The strange berries were globular and covered in bulbous yellow lumps. Adora glared at one suspiciously.

Madam Razz, halfway up the massive bush, called down to her, voice surprisingly clear for someone so spindly and who-knew-how-old. “Yes, that’s exactly the right kind. Make sure you fill your basket or we won’t have enough for pie!”

Adora’s stomach lurched at the thought, but she dutifully began gingerly plucking berries from the bush and placing them in her basket. 

_She’s so nimble for someone her age._ Adora wondered how long Madam Razz had been living in these woods, guarding Etheria’s secrets under her deceptive exterior, as the forest’s slow creep of vines and undergrowth hid away Etheria from its history. If words were anything to go by, at least a millennium—Mara had passed into shadow a thousand years ago.

The Horde’s dull screech of metal and heat could not touch the heart of the Whispering Woods, where heavy strong oaks bulwarked the impenetrable fastness of a thousand years of unchecked wild growth. The forest’s ferocity was deliberate, of course. First Ones’ relics could not be stolen if they could not be found.

Wiping off the berries’ sticky residue on her pants, staining them, Adora wondered, not for the first time, how it was that destiny decided she was to be the next She-ra. In some sense, she thought it ironic that Shadow Weaver’s dearest protege could become the Horde’s greatest foe, but surely Fate would not act for the sake of pure irony.

“What’s with the long face, dearie?” Madam Razz asked as she balanced two baskets, bursting with berries, in one hand.

Adora was jolted out of her thoughts. “N-nothing! I’m just wondering how old this berry bush is. It’s huge.”

“Much older than you!” tittered Madam Razz. “The oldest ones make the sweetest fruit.”

Adora held a berry up to her face so she could peer at it more closely. “They don’t seem very sweet to me.”

The berry oozed a little bit of yellow goop as if laughing at her words. She grimaced.

“Fill your basket,” Madam Razz said cheerily, “and you’ll see.”

...

Back at the cottage about half an hour later, Madam Razz began to roll out a pie crust as Adora plucked stems and leaves off of berries. By now, she had grown used to the berries’ lumpy, squashy texture, but she still wanted to gag a little. 

The oven filled the small cottage with warmth, and Adora let herself relax. “So, Madam Razz—how long _have_ you been living here?”

Madam Razz chortled and placed the first pie-crust on a round dish. “Dearie my, since my Mara was here. It’s been—” she counted on her long, knobby fingers— “quite some time! But we should not be focused on the past, dearie. The present is what really matters!”

Adora placed the first full bowl of yellow berries on the wooden countertop. “That’s not much of an answer at all, though! Wasn’t Mara’s time a thousand years ago? You must be ancient!”

“It’s impolite to ask a lady her age,” Madam Razz chided, clicking her tongue. “Now crush those berries up with some sugar, will you?”

Acquiescing, Adora cracked her knuckles. She was good at crushing, if not at unearthing secrets. 

Razz chattered on as they worked, telling tales of the woods and of Mara. Adora half-listened, lost in thought and the mindless work of pie-making.

“—and the watchtower my Mara built was quite a lovely thing to behold! It stood like a pillar of iron in a sea of gold.” Madam Razz looked wistfully out the window. “The years have passed like sand through an hourglass. Many other artifacts of the past she left behind as well. Some still living.”

Adora’s ears perked up as she placed another full bowl of berries on the counter. One more basket to go.“Living? What do you mean?”

Razz smiled and began scooping the sugar and berry mixture into a pie tin. “Living! Just the same as you or I.”

“But what does that _mean_? How can relics, which clearly are technology and not like, horses or something,” Adora gestured wildly with her hands, almost throwing a spoon through the window by accident, “be _alive_?”

Madam Razz merely laughed. “Finish up those berries, dearie! Juicy secrets make juicy pies.”

“They do not!” said Adora, but she got back to work anyway.

Some time later, they were loading pies into the oven. The sweet smell of sugar floated on the air, and Adora had to admit that perhaps the yellow monstrosities Razz called berries were not as terrifying as they seemed.

“So what were you saying earlier about those relics?” Adora ventured again, still unsatisfied.

Razz teetered on the edge of a stepstool, reaching for something on a high shelf. “So many questions! You’re just as curious as my Mara. Would you like some answers?”

Adora nodded vigorously, almost getting globs of leftover berry stuck in her hair. 

“My, my. Very well. I have a job for you, then.”

Stepping down from the stool, Razz put the last of the pies in the oversized oven, then pulled a piece of yellowed parchment from a bundle she had retrieved from the shelf. She unfurled it carefully, weighting down its curled edges with wooden paperweights.

Adora peered at it closely. “It’s a map. Of the Woods.”

“Indeed! Mara left a landmark at that X.” She pointed to a spot on the map. “It’s been several years since I’ve visited it. Be a dear and find it, and tell me what kind of condition it’s in.”

Adora took careful note of the X’s location. It looked like it would take at least a ten minute trek from the cottage to reach. 

“Come back in half an hour or you won’t be in time for pie!”

…

The woods creaked around her and she gulped. Adora almost wished she hadn’t asked Madam Razz so many questions. She looked down at the treetops below her. Branches like fingers grasped at the pale sky. From her position high up on the cliffside she swore she could almost see the golden glow of Bright Moon.

_So Mara left an artifact at the top of this cliff?_

She wondered how many other relics were out there in the woods. Madam Razz certainly seemed to know the location of a few of them. 

_What the Horde would give to have that knowledge_.

The Horde. One misstep on the Alliance’s part and the Horde would descend upon Bright Moon like the pounding of waves over sand. Etheria would be lost with the tide. Her shoulders felt weighed down with the enormous burden of it all, and she gripped her hold on the cliff-face more tightly.

She reached up to pull herself over the edge of the clifftop. Her stomach lurched when she realized she _could_ see Bright Moon from the immense height. All the trepidation left her, however, when she turned around and saw where Madam Razz’s map had pointed.

A massive tree, golden trunk stark against the grey of the sky, stood solidly before her. Yellow leaves like butterflies fluttered in the breeze, and she gaped, astonished. The wind whispered between the strange, broad branches, beckoning her closer. 

_Adora_.

She shivered, hearing a voice in her mind. It wasn’t Light Hope’s, but it echoed with the same ancient resonance.

“I’m here,” she said, a little wary. Her hand went to the hilt of the sword tied to her back. She approached the tree cautiously. The roots, deep ochre and thick as pillars, parted around her, forming a path.

Carved into the trunk of the tree was First Ones’ writing. She ran her hand over the angular characters almost involuntarily. 

_Eternia_ , she thought, reading the letters. The roots of the tree, which weaved through the soil like a network of pipes, curled by her ankles. Life hummed around her, rich and tangible like the magic-tinged air swirling in her lungs. 

_Adora._

“I’m here,” she said again, glancing upward into the tree’s higher-reaching branches. “Who are you? Show me.”

Golden leaves shivered and touched her skin, and she closed her eyes. Her mind was suddenly awash in a mix of memories that were both hers and not. She leaned into them.

_She is thirteen and a girl, and she knows her place in the world. She will fight for the Horde and defeat the evil which stands in its way. Cadet Adora. It’s simple._

_She is eighteen and a woman now, and her world has been utterly changed. Black and white bursts into a bloom of color, and certainty seems now to be a thing she never had. The hilt of the Sword of Protection in her hands glints gold, beckoning her into a destiny she does not fully understand. But it feels right._

_As She-ra she is ancient and alien and more history than human, the memories of the thousand thousands before her glittering in her head. Etheria is hers and she will not let it be tarnished. The power surging in her veins turns the carbon-hard armor hammered into her bones by the Horde into diamonds. She blazes with a deep love for the land and people which it is her mission to protect._

The swirl of memories in her head murmured around her, drawing her back beyond her own experiences into the distant past.

_Mara she was no longer. She is young, and untried, but a fierce love for Etheria runs through her like the blood in her arteries, setting her body on fire. She clutches at her heart, unfamiliar gold and white fabric curling in her fingers, overwhelmed in the emotion of it all. Her people could not fall. Would not fall._

_It is almost too late. She is still young, now, but the horror of reality weighs her down like a stone. Her shattered mind cannot cope with the enormity of her primordial duty. The latent power brewing within her bursts out in a scintillating conflagration of light and energy, and Etheria_ moves _._

_Darkness, like the void between the stars. Except these new stars were somber and strange._

Adora flew back from the tree, gasping. Her heart raced, and she still felt not fully human, like the bond tethering her soul to her body had raveled. _So that was Mara._

“What happened?” she cried. “Tell me what happened!”

Memory rushed at her again in response.

_In the unhurried years before her calling, her life possessed stability and purpose. She knew her role, and who to follow._

_As She-ra, she still felt purposeful, but now she was anything but stable. Like she had touched her hand to electricity and the yellow thrill of power crackled in her veins, but she was three seconds from getting burned. The swell of ancient magic inside her surged and threatened to electrify._

_She-ra was glittering and golden and great; she was the blinding of the sun's rays on the dawn of a new day. But the dark, perilous forces which set themselves against her raged unceasingly against the land she had sworn to protect. She loved Etheria but she could not withstand—_

A wave of dizziness washed over Adora. “So the Horde broke your mind? Or the weight of your duty? I don’t understand. How could—”

She stopped, thinking back on her own experiences. A delicate yellow leaf fluttered in front of her, and she picked it up carefully.

She had felt that love, when she took the form of She-ra. The intrinsic, intricate, bright hope radiated like sunrays from the Sword of Protection and into the deep roots of the land, raising up life and strengthening spirits and causing Etheria to bloom. 

_I’m Etheria’s protector. Mara was Etheria’s protector. What went wrong?_

It hit her.

“You gave so much of yourself to the world that it consumed you.”

A sharp wind cut between the leaves, rattling the branches. She shielded her eyes. The carved First Ones’ writing on the trunk glowed gold, and she watched as the roots moved as if bringing something up from deep within the soil.

It was a small, wooden box. She picked it up, and the roots retreated as the rattling stopped.

She opened it. Inside lay a golden key.

“What does this mean?” she asked. 

_You will know in time,_ whispered the voice in her mind. _As a parting gift, I give you these words: Love this land, and love your duty to it, but do not lose yourself. You will be great yet._

She could only watch as the tree withered before her, its purpose fulfilled.

…

Back in Madam Razz’s cottage, it seemed that the berry pies weren’t so bad after all. She fingered the golden key in her pocket and smiled.


End file.
